RMNB is only 10-percent actually Russian, but this is deeply unsettling to all of us. How “Nice Guy” Putin makes it through this sightread of the Russian anthem with a straight face, I will never know.

]]>http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2015/02/18/putin-watches-egypt-shred-the-russian-national-anthem/feed/29KHL President Suggests Alex Ovechkin and Russian Stars May Leave NHL to Play at Home: “Next Season There May Be Pleasant Surprises”http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2014/09/01/khl-president-suggests-alex-ovechkin-and-russian-stars-may-leave-nhl-to-play-at-home-next-season-there-may-be-pleasant-surprises/
http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2014/09/01/khl-president-suggests-alex-ovechkin-and-russian-stars-may-leave-nhl-to-play-at-home-next-season-there-may-be-pleasant-surprises/#commentsMon, 01 Sep 2014 15:39:13 +0000http://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/?p=69900

When are we going to see [Ovechkin and Malkin] on KHL rinks, not just for a preseason charity game?

Alexander Medvedev: “Are you talking about [Ovechkin and Malkin] returning to the KHL? Next season there may be pleasant surprises. Let’s wait.”

Former Red Wing Slava Fetisov later expanded on Medvedev’s comments while speaking to Sovetsky Sport’s Pavel Lysenkov. Fetisov is a prominent member of Putin’s United Russia political party and the Russian Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian Legislature.

Medvedev mentioned the possibility of Ovechkin and Malkin returning to the KHL: “Expect surprises the next season.” Is it realistic, considering the political situation?

Slava Fetisov: “This is not an easy situation. Although I never imagined that athletes would be discriminated against during political confrontations. But yesterday I talked to Sasha Ovechkin. He had a picture taken holding a sign “Save children from fascism” and right away he got a lot of retweets as if he were supporting Putin.

The way I understand, fascism was denounced by modern humanity a long time ago. As a fact. How can you connect one to another? I am beginning to be concerned how Ovechkin will be received in America. Although I believe that sport is the only thing that can unite people today. Our guys from the NHL are ambassadors promoting our way of life.

Everybody portrays Russia as the aggressor. But even in hockey, an aggressive sport, we have always played in a more artistic way than anybody else.

I think Malkin and Ovechkin should play in the NHL. There is a conversation. But I don’t know how realistic it would be to take all our stars back from there.”

“Ovechkin has a current contract with the Capitals,” Safronov was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS. “Can we try to pull him out? We’ll talk, we’ll look at each other and will have some result. Right now all Russian national team players want to come back to their homeland.”

When Ovechkin returned to America for training camp a year ago, the Caps captain brushed away Safronov’s comments. The political situation has changed a lot in a year.

Editor’s note: There is news and reporting in here, but it’s also an opinion piece. My opinions are my own. I won’t speak for anyone else at RMNB. I also encourage everyone to do their own research on this and not just take me- or anyone else– at face value. Frankly, I’d rather not write about this at all, but it seems inappropriate for a site named “Russian Machine Never Breaks” not to address this somehow.

I’m not a historian or an expert in global politics, but I’ll do my best to summarize this extremely complicated story. You will probably find fault with my oversimplifications or lack of nuance here. That’s okay; share your thoughts in the comments.

From around the end of World War I up until December of 1991, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. In 1942, Stalin, who was not a good guy, enacted the Sürgünlik (or “exile”), forcing most of the indigenous Tatars, a Turkish ethnic group who claim Sunni Islam as their faith, out of Crimea (a peninsula hanging off the south of Ukraine) and into what is now Uzbekistan. In their place, Stalin moved ethnic Russians into Crimea, establishing a loyal population in valuable territory with access to the Black Sea. This will be relevant later.

In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union under Gorbachev enacted policies of restructuring and openness. In 1991, the Ukrainians voted to become independent.

Jump forward to today. Two thirds of Ukrainians speak Ukranian, one third speak Russian, but fewer than one in five consider themselves ethnically Russian. They’re separate countries. From 1991 until 2004, Ukraine had been on a different path than Russia, though they still shared a lot in common — like political interests as well as the actual families who were split between the border. It’s complicated.

In 2004, Ukraine elected Russian crony Viktor Yanukovych as President in a sketchy election. The opposition leader, a guy named Viktor Yushchenko, called shenanigans and led protests, sparking the peaceful Orange Revolution. They got a new election, which was less sketchy. Yushchenko was named President.

This made Russia (read: Vladimir Putin) mad. Ukraine had reaffirmed its independence from Russia and moved to become closer to the European Union.

After that, Ukraine’s economy and government kinda blew up. In 2010, Yanukovych– the same Russia-friendly guy they had a revolution to oust just six years prior, won the presidency. Immediately, protests began in Kiev. Except this time, unlike the Orange Revolution, it got violent. The military killed scores of protesters. Putin used the chaos as an excuse to invade and annex Crimea, home to many ethnic Russians, in an action that Stalin sorta primed for him 70 years earlier. The US and the UN said that the annexation was illegal.

Ukraine ostensibly has an interim government right now, but it’s tenuous. Russia has been funding and arming rebels in the eastern side of the country, fomenting a broader conflict. Russia has not admitted this support and has actually accused the US of arming the rebels (which, in fairness, sounds like something we would do, just not this time).

The continued fighting around Donetsk has led to a humanitarian crisis– lack of food, no running water, etc. Russia offered a convoy of supplies to help the Ukrainian people, though they didn’t have legal permission to enter the country. This is what was in the trucks:

The Russian government’s position is that the democratic processes that elected Yanukovych have been undermined, and the result is hashtag fascism.

Fascism is one of those words that loses its meaning when you change contexts, but its traditional definition is an authoritarian government with strong central leadership, nationalism, and militarism.

“I’m going to have a conversation with Ovi on his role with the group and how I would like to play,” Trotz said, before admitting he had some problems communicating with the Russian machine. “I haven’t really discussed that with him [though]. Actually, I talked to him when he was over in Russia and they won the World Championships, and he was at Mr. Putin’s house — I believe, or somewhere like that — so it wasn’t the proper time to really sit down and do that.”

If the Kremlin counts as “Putin’s house,” then yes Ovechkin was totally there yesterday.

A few minutes later, Ovechkin was called up to the stage. Notice the swagger. Ovechkin’s jacket’s unbuttoned. He isn’t wearing a tie; his hair’s uncombed. He makes some small talk. This is clearly not a big deal for him.

Then he shakes Putin’s hand and chucks some deuces in the official Kremlin photo between the two.

Wait, what?

Can we slow this down? Take a look at Putin’s face when he notices what Ovechkin did. This blows my mind.

Things just went downhill from there. Even Evgeni Malkin joined in on the fun.

Later Ovechkin presented Putin with a Team Russia jersey which said “Champion” on the back.

Sometimes, words can say only so much. In the photos above and below, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian captain Alex Ovechkin celebrate together in the locker room after the Ruskies won the 2014 World Championship on Sunday.

[Editor’s note: We’re not writing about this topic to invite a debate on Barack Obama’s presidency or the politics of Crimea. This article is about hockey. Kind of. It’s also about Miley Cyrus.]

In March, Vladimir Putin sent troops into the Crimea. His stated motive was to protect the mostly Russian population there from unrest. A few days later, the Crimean parliament declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation. Putin then claimed Crimea as part of Russia on moral and material grounds, citing the principle of self-determination and Crimea’s strategic importance for Russia or some ish like that.

Lots of world leaders were pretty pissed about this, judging by the non-binding UN resolution (100 of 193 in favor) that declared Crimea’s Moscow-backed referendum invalid a few days later. Then the United States decided to show just how pissed they were by sanctioning Vladimir Putin and all his boyz.

Those of us who watch the news every night and consider ourselves informed knew all of this already. What we didn’t know is who exactly got sanctioned, why they got sanctioned, and why those sanctions matter to us. Thanks to Jennifer M. Smith (whom we had the pleasure of meeting at RMNB Party 6) and her co-workers at the Stewart & Stewart law firm, we have learned that some of the people sanctioned are deeply involved in the Russian hockey league, the KHL. Russian billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, president of Alex Ovechkin’s former KHL team Dynamo Moscow, has been sanctioned by the United States for being Putin’s former judo partner and a member of his inner circle.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Gennady Timchenko, chairman of the board for the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) and president of Ilya Kovalchuk’s SKA St. Petersburg, has also been sanctioned, as well as Arkady Rotenberg’s brother, Boris, president of Dynamo’s soccer team. Timchenko and the Rotenberg brothers also own a joint stake in the Finnish hockey team Jokerit, which is slated to join the KHL in the 2014-15 season.

The sanctions prohibit anyone from the United States from engaging in any transactions with people on that list. The economic sanctions also block any transactions with their property, including the entities they own.

The U.S. sanctions freeze assets of Timchenko and the Rotenbergs, block their property and property interests, and ban them from travelling to the United States. Under U.S. law, the sanctions also automatically block the property and property interests of any entity in which a blocked person such as Timchenko and the Rotenbergs owns, directly or indirectly, a 50% or more interest.

This means that any person in the United States and all U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and entities (including foreign branches) are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with Timchenko, the Rotenbergs, and any organization in which they have a 50% or more ownership interest.

Canada has also blocked Timchenko and his property, but not the Rotenbergs.

The question becomes: do any of the three billionaires named in the sanctions own 50% or more of their KHL teams?

Fedor did some research. The majority of Jokerit’s stock is owned by Finnish businessman Hjallis Harkimo. At SKA, though Timchenko is acting president, the organization is majority owned by gas giant Gazprom, which is in possession of the Russian Federation. The only club that seems to be in danger of doing business with the United States or its people is Dynamo Moscow. There’s not much information on who or which entities own the club legally, but it’s most likely Arkady Rotenberg who owns over the majority of the team’s stock.

Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin was named advisor to Dynamo Moscow in 2010. It was a paid position.

Regardless of a hockey player’s nationality, any permanent resident of the U.S. (i.e. anyone with a “green card”) is treated as a “U.S. person” who must comply with U.S. economic sanctions. That would seem to indicate that Ovechkin must be careful in his dealings with Dynamo now and until the sanctions are lifted.

The U.S. Government takes violations of the sanctions laws very seriously — a single violation can result in up to 20 years in prison, criminal fines of up to $1 million, and civil penalties of up to $250,000 or twice the amount of the relevant transaction.

According to Reuters, professional twerker/part-time terrible musical artist Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake have been the first Americans to test the sanctions. They’ve been given the green light to perform concerts in venues owned by sanctioned people this summer.

American pop stars Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake can go ahead with shows in Finland despite U.S. sanctions against the Helsinki venue’s Russian owners, the concerts’ promoter said on Monday.

The concerts were at risk last week as the Hartwall Arena venue is owned by Gennady Timchenko and Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, all of whom feature in a list of visa bans and asset freezes imposed by the United States following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

The concert promoter said U.S. officials had indicated at the weekend that the sanctions would not prevent the concerts going ahead.

“The sanctions will not have an impact on Hartwall Arena nor our business there,” Nina Castren, the chief executive of Live Nation Finland, told Reuters.

This is really complicated.

Any North American player who wishes to play in the KHL next season should get educated on the sanctions and whom they affect. And they should be careful. Considering the rulings for Miley Cyrus and Justin Timberlake, these sanctions seem mostly toothless when involving entertainers. And while we have no idea what Alex Ovechkin’s role with Dynamo is right now, he should be careful too.

We need to understand it better first. We should map in our minds the unfettered misery of the Sochi Olympics. For reasons. To this end I have devised a two-dimensional matrix of sadness and badassness. Presenting the RMNB Putin-Weir matrix. (I’m really proud of this, so shut up.)

On one axis we have Sad Putin, the basic unit of human suffering. Based on the works of Viktor Frankl and Martin Buber, Sad Putin measures bad things like losing, losing real bad, getting eviscerated by the media, getting busted injecting black tar allergy medicine, and missing the birth of your child.

On the other axis we have Badass Weir, the basic unit of yolo. To rank on the Weir axis, one must outperform expectations, scoar a sick goal, buck the trends, and generally be a cool dude like Johnny Weir.

By combining these metrics, I hope to understand precisely how sucky the Sochi Olympics were. I don’t know why we’d want to do that, but we’re doing it.

Marcus Johansson

Marcus was a late addition to the Swedish roster. As a sometimes scratch, he played just five games out of six and barely over ten minutes per game on average. Johansson recorded just one assist in the tourney, but his team fought valiantly all the way to the gold medal game.

Six out of ten Sad Putins for not getting a lot of play, losing the big game, and having to deal with immigration.

Four out of ten Badass Weirs for getting an assist, looking like a stud riding whatever the Russian version of a Huffy is, and actually getting a medal, unlike some people…

Nick Backstrom

Poor baby. Nick Backstrom had a ton of chemistry with Daniel Sedin, recording four assists in five games. Missing the Henriks (Sedin and Zetterberg) probably limited Nicky’s and Sweden’s chances to kick some ace. What should’ve been Nick’s chance to step out of Ovi’s shadow ended up being a fiasco.

Martin Erat

After going approximately infinity games without a goal, Erat scored an empty netter going into the break. Watch the floodgates, y’all. Erat struck again against the Latvians. The Czechs got bounced by a still-plucky, not-yet-broken American team in the quarterfinals.

Four out of ten Badass Weirs for scoring America’s first goal and surviving an assignment next to Brooks Orpik.

Alex Ovechkin

The face of the Sochi Olympics was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Teemu Selanne and the Finns. While he put 24 shots on goal, Ovechkin scored just once– on his first shot in his first game. That’s not all that uncommon among shooters like Ovi, but when I tried to explain that to all the nice folks with pitchforks and torches, they were oddly unreceptive.

Two years ago, Russian news agency RIA Novosti (Russian Information Agency News) was awarded national host agency and photo pool rights for the Olympics in Sochi. On Monday, with less than two months before the opening ceremony, President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to dissolve the state-owned news agency.

According to the head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, multiple reasons led to the decision, including a planned decrease in funding for state-owned media and the need for increased efficiency in reporting.

Instead, a new agency, named Russia Today, shall be created. It’s unknown if the new agency will be related to the English-language TV channel of the same name. Their avowed goals are similar: provide news from Russia to a foreign audience.

Questions over Olympic coverage were raised after the announcement. A national host agency is normally the main source of news for the host country’s audience. That agency has coverage rights comparable to those held by the International Olympic Committee’s international partners, such as Associated Press, Reuters, and France Press. In 2010, the Canadian Press were the host agency for the Vancouver Olympics. In 2012 these duties were delegated to the Press Association.

It’s not the first controversial situation RIA Novosti found itself in regarding Olympic coverage. Four months ago it was made public that the largest sports site of Russian web, Sports.ru, was denied accreditation to the Olympics. Their respective editors-in-chief, Dmitry Navosha of Sports.ru and Svetlana Mironyuk of RIA Novosti, exchanged a few verbal jabs on Facebook as Navosha hinted that the refusal was an attempt to smother competition to RIA Novosti’s online projects. Mironyuk and RIA Novosti Executive Director Dmitry Tugarin are members of the Russian Olympic Committee’s press commission, the group that made the decision to deny Sports.ru.

Mironyuk addressed RIA Novosti’s employees today. One person captured the video of the speech and uploaded it to YouTube. The video has since been taken down, but has been partially transcribed by Sports.ru:

“Regarding the Olympics, we and our lawyers are working on finding an answer to whether we, as a dissolving organization, can legally spend to cover the Olympics or according to the law we must direct all the money to our employees and creditors. This will decide it; if we direct all the money we have to employees and creditors, the state will have to cover their Olympics by itself.”

The futures of RIA Novosti’s daughter companies, which include the sports-focused R-Sport, are in doubt now as well. RIA Novosti and R-Sport had been known for the best sports coverage in Russia. I’d be disappointed to lose them as a reliable source of KHL news.

A few summers ago, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin revealed to Pavel Lysenkov that he had Vladimir Putin’s phone number. Because sometime sports stars and world leaders just need to rap. “It’s not his cell phone number, but rather his home phone,” Ovechkin said, as translated by Igor Kleyner. “I call him often. But Putin is never at home. So far I haven’t managed to talk to him yet!”

That last part appears to have changed. During Adam Oates’ press conference with the media on Thursday, the Caps head coach revealed that Ovi had to take a pretty important call while they were hanging out together in Russia.

Oates on if he understands Ovechkin's importance to RUS: "When I was over there, the president called him. Obama doesn't call me too often."